Council expands kerbside recycling scheme

Harrogate Borough Council is expanding the range of materials it collects as part of its kerbside recycling scheme in order to further reduce the amount of waste it takes to landfill.

From Saturday 16 January residents across the district will, for the first time, be able to put brown cardboard, tetrapak drink cartons, and some plastic pots and tubs in their kerbside recycling.

Up to now, if people wanted to recycle these items they had to take them to one of the district’s household waste and recycling centres for recycling, but now they can put them out in addition to everything that is already collected as part of the kerbside ‘box and bag’ scheme.

Previously, Harrogate district residents were only able to recycle paper, card, glass jars and bottles, food and drinks cans, aerosol cans, tin foil and plastic bottles at the kerbside.

Since introducing a wheeled bin/recycling alternative weekly service in July 2012, recycling rates have steadily grown. Kerbside recycling rates exceeded 10,650 tonnes in 2014/15 compared to 7,584 tonnes in 2012/13. A reduction in landfill costs and taxes as a result of increased recycling has allowed the council to achieve savings to the tax payer of over £725,000 annually.

By expanding the range of items that can be collected as part of our kerbside recycling service we will be able to help them achieve this aim.

We want to make it as easy as possible for residents to recycle and the expanded kerbside service will mean they don’t need to travel as often to one of the district’s waste and recycling centres.

Our residents have embraced the council’s efforts to increase recycling and I would like to thank them for all their efforts. The current kerbside recycling service has proved to be a huge success. It is benefiting the environment as we are reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill.

The council has achieved significant savings for the tax payer, and whilst the cost of recycling has increased as the value of the recycled material has fallen over recent years, recycling still remains a cheaper option than sending the waste to landfill.

Residents who want to recycle the new materials are asked to do the following before putting them in their recycling box or bag:

remove any plastic wrapping or bubble wrap from cardboard boxes

cut up the cardboard so that it fits into the blue recycling bag

Please wash and squash plastic pots (ie yogurt pots, plastic tubs, margarine tubs) and tetrapak cartons (wax cartons used for fruit juice) and put the lid on so that they take up as little space as possible in the recycling box.

The council has an email and text messaging update service for residents, which notifies them directly of collection changes and other service issues. Any resident who wants to be added to this updating service can email customerservices@harrogate.gov.uk